The Voice News: A man identified as Newton Das, reportedly involved in the 2024 student protests that led to the ouster of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been found listed as a voter in West Bengal’s Kakdwip Assembly constituency, according to a report by The Hindu.
Photos of Das participating in the anti-government protests in Dhaka circulated widely on social media. In a video, he claimed Indian citizenship, stating he had traveled to Bangladesh in 2024 for ancestral property matters and became involved in the uprising. He said he has been a voter in Kakdwip since 2014 but lost his card in 2017. A new card was issued in 2018 with the help of local TMC MLA Manturam Pakhira.
Das claimed he voted in the 2016 Assembly elections. His cousin, Tapan Das, confirmed Newton was born in Bangladesh and has voting rights in both countries, adding that he returned to Bangladesh after the COVID-19 pandemic to sell land and had not come back since.
Political Fallout
The incident sparked a major political controversy. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused the Trinamool Congress (TMC) of enabling illegal voting by Bangladeshi nationals.
“This is not an accident, but the TMC’s blueprint to flood Bengal’s voter rolls with infiltrators,” the BJP posted on social media. Senior BJP leaders Suvendu Adhikari and Sukanta Majumdar alleged that thousands of Bangladeshi nationals, including suspected militants, were on Bengal’s voter list due to TMC’s appeasement politics.
Majumdar claimed the same Newton seen wielding a stick during the protests is now a registered voter in Bengal and accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of building her political base on illegal voters.
TMC Responds
In response, the Trinamool Congress rejected the allegations, placing the onus on the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Union Home Ministry for border surveillance. TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said that whether people enter “by land, water, or air,” it is the responsibility of the central government.
TMC also pointed fingers at the Election Commission, claiming it is complicit in voter list tampering. Earlier, Mamata Banerjee had accused the BJP of trying to manipulate electoral rolls in several states, including West Bengal.